DailyBooth

Mouisariy liked Hollis' picture

The Post War Dream.


War. Grotesque, inhumane, retched war. Needless waste of life and limb. It is not necessary in the slightest; and yet our lives are filled with it, whether we're living it, or simply watching it on the nightly news. How? Why? Are we not civilized enough with our political correctness and peacekeeping organizations?

I had to do a project on the Bosnian War for Modern World last semester. That's what got me into the U2 War binge. I did a lot of research (which I didn't need to - but hey, that's me. I'm interested in history) on it, and frankly, there were things that made me literally sick to my stomach. And I'm not the squeamish type. I wasn't just sick from the horrible, disgusting tales of children blown apart by mortars in Sarajevo, or the mass graves in the Bosnian countryside, but by the absolute absurdity of it all. Little girls were having their innards splattered across the streets by Serbian snipers and shells, and for what? To keep Yugoslavia together? Not even that; it was merely to eradicate the Bosnians. The war was no military tactic or strategy; it was flat-out genocide. The entire city was decimated - the parks void of trees and filled with hastily-prepared graves dug under the cover of the chilly night, just to avoid the snipers.

I read Zlata's Diary, a real account of an 11-year old girl's experience in the midst of the Siege of Sarajevo, and it really brought home the human aspect of war. War is an ugly thing, we all know, but with the news and the internet today all we get are facts and numbers, and we are simply fed faceless statistics on casualties with fancy graphics and colorful onscreen maps. But what of the human element?

As her diary progresses, her wording becomes more terse and biting, and she comes to terms with the death and horror that surround her in a way that, although mature, no young schoolgirl should ever have to. No one should be subjected to the horrors of armed conflict, but at least adults have some life experience. They know about death, they know about the evil and anger that plagues the human race. They know of the real world. But children shouldn’t. Children should be worried about what shoes to wear or what color marker to use, not whether or not their mother made it safely across Sniper’s Alley or if her friends have become maimed or killed by shells. It’s sickening.

There’s an e-book by the photographer Robert Richards – one can easily look it up on Google – that made me so angry. And sick, in every sense of the word. Sick in my heart, and almost sick to my stomach. War isn’t for the weak. Rather, war isn’t for man. It’s a crime that we all live with, but don’t have to.

It just seems that humanity is stabbing itself in the back. We achieve more and more as time marches on, yet we tarnish our hearts by polishing our guns.





And still the dark stain spreads between
their shoulder blades.
A mute reminder of the poppy fields and graves.
And when the fight was over,
we spent what they had made.
But in the bottom of our hearts,
we felt the final cut.